Subjects Archives: Inequality

  Nou dwe sèl mèt bout tè sa a: We should be the only owners of this land. From an anti-MINUSTAH protest last month.  Photo by Ansel Herz. This was Haitian protesters’ message at a demonstration last month against the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, known by its French acronym, MINUSTAH.  October marks an upswing […]

Has Wall Street become the site, the space, the barricaded-yet-porous position of the next American Revolution?  Is Zuccotti Park, the 33,000-square-foot privately owned yet publically accessible sliver of real estate across the street from the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan the new streets of Chicago (October 1968) or the new streets of Seattle […]

The Labor Department reported that the economy added 103,000 jobs in September.  This increase, together with upward revisions to the prior two months’ data brought average job growth over the last three months to 99,000 per month, almost exactly the number needed to keep pace with the growth of the labor force.  Consistent with this […]

Zainab al-Hosni, dubbed the “Flower of Syria,” who the Syrian opposition claimed was tortured and murdered, burned and decapitated, by the Syrian government, has just appeared on Syrian TV, very much alive.  Here is the video of the TV interview with Zainab, who says she fled from her family home because her brothers were beating […]

  Francisco Rodríguez Cruz is a Cuban journalist and activist who for over a year has maintained a controversial blog committed to advancing the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in Cuba.  This is a community that has experienced a difficult history of discrimination on the island. Paquito, as he is […]

  Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons issued a statement on Sunday, September 25, 2011, stating that they plan to begin an open-ended hunger strike on September 27, 2011, demanding an end to the isolation of Ahmad Sa’adat, an end to isolation for all Palestinian political prisoners, and an end to the policies of repression […]

Steve Brouwer.  Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conceptualization of Health Care.  New York, Monthly Review Press, 2011.  245 pp.  $18.95. As Venezuela becomes the first country to reproduce the Cuban medical model on a massive scale, it is doing so in ways that are unique in both form and process.  […]

  Does the court system employ racists? Then why are so many black boys in cages? Why shouldn’t I be paranoid of hatred? Just look at the curious case of Troy Davis Let’s travel on down to Savannah In the state of Georgia just south of Atlanta Where they wave the rebel flag like a […]

  In August a UN OCHA Mission visited Syria to assess humanitarian needs in the country stemming from the ongoing crisis there.  The Mission included staff from several UN institutions and humanitarian agencies (UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, IOM, etc.).  The Syrian authorities provided the Mission unimpeded access to all objects of interest.  The UN officials […]

Regarding the recent events in Libya, Rafael Quintero, Undersecretary for Asia, Africa, and Oceania, reiterated Ecuador’s disagreement with disrespect for the territorial integrity of that country.  He expressed Ecuador’s insistence that international conventions be complied with, that human rights in Libya be respected, and that no attempt be made to take the Libyan case as […]

To the attention of the Press and the Public: As it is known, last Saturday a protest took place outside Tottenham police station in order to attain answers or explanations as to how and why Mark Duggan, a father of four, was killed by the police on Thursday 4th August.  The events were unleashed as […]

Terry Everton is a cartoonist.  Visit his blog Working Stiff Review at .  Cf. “State of Working America Preview: A Staggering Rise in Health Insurance Costs” (Economic Policy Institute, 15 December 2010); Don Trementozzi and Steve Early, “Romney, Obama Health Care Reforms Offer No Relief for Unions” (Labor Notes, 22 June 2011). | Print

The torture of prisoners in U.S. custody isn’t confined to foreign countries.  For more than two weeks, inmates at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have been on a hunger strike to protest torturous conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) there.  Prisoners have been held for years in solitary confinement, which can amount to torture.  […]

  A vigil for six Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) members — Choo Chon Kai, Sarat Babu, Sarasvathy Muthu, Sukumaran A/L Munisamy, A. Letchumanan, and Dr. Jeyakumar Devaraj — detained under the Emergency Ordinance (EO). Bukit Aman Vigil for PSM 6, 11 July 2011 Yudistra Darma Dorai, Legal Counsel for PSM 6, 6 July 2011 Cf. […]

  Excerpt: This case represents a yawning gap between the promise of principled exercise of power in a constitutional democracy, and the reality of the situation in Chattisgarh, where the Respondent, the State of Chattisgarh, claims that it has a constitutional sanction to perpetrate, indefinitely, a regime of gross violation of human rights in a […]

We’re now working on a new edition of our book, The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers, and you can help us. We won’t be making dramatic changes — unfortunately, not that much has changed in the immigration debate since the book came out back in 2007.  The media repeat the same myths about immigration, […]

  Prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison (California) are going on an indefinite hunger strike as of July 1, 2011 to protest the cruel, inhumane, and torturous conditions of their imprisonment.  The hunger strike has been organized by prisoners in an inspiring show of unity across racial and geographic […]

  “Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s my fault.  Israel’s PR failure is on my account.  But after you forbid us from protesting, after you pass the law, everything will be different here.  The entire world would know that Israel is a magnificent democracy.  Tourism and trade will flourish.  Anywhere Israelis go, everybody will know that […]

  Excerpt: Across US counties, life expectancy in 2007 ranged from 65.9 to 81.1 years for men and 73.5 to 86.0 years for women.  When compared against a time series of life expectancy in the 10 nations with the lowest mortality, US counties range from being 15 calendar years ahead to over 50 calendar years […]

  “Where did all these people come from?” “Who cares!  Don’t stop.  They don’t belong to our circles.” Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona.  This cartoon was first published in his blog on 19 June 2011 under a Creative Commons license.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  Cf. Victor Mallet, […]